I suspect the rapid decline of Apple’s software is a sign that marketing is too high a priority at Apple today: having major new releases every year is clearly impossible for the engineering teams to keep up with while maintaining quality. Maybe it’s an engineering problem, but I suspect not — I doubt that any cohesive engineering team could keep up with these demands and maintain significantly higher quality.Apple has lost the functional high ground on marco.org

Which then spread like wildfire;

This morning, my words were everywhere, chopped up and twisted by sensational opportunists to fuel the tired “Apple is doomed!” narrative with my name on them. (Or Tumblr’s name, which was even worse.) Business Insider started the party, as usual, but it spread like wildfire from there. Huffington Post. Wall Street Journal. CNN. Heise. Even a televised CNBC discussion segment.What it’s like to be way too popular for a day on Marco.org

Which might seem like a blogging dream-come-true, but you’d be wrong. Fascinating.

See also: Marco went into more detail on both ATP and The Talk Show, both of which are equally long and worth the listen.

Curse this modern work-lifestyle. At first it seems too good to be true, the freedom to work wherever you want, the autonomy to dictate your own hours, the liberty to create the work environment most likely to see you flourish as a professional. And yet, despite having this expanse of work place luxuries, you feel a cold, dark emptiness which gnaws at your subconscious. You’ve made the leap into the new workforce, the empowered remote professional, the cafe-dwelling urban nomad, but something just doesn’t quite feel right.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

This is actually a big part of the problem, though you won’t understand it until you’ve taken the plunge and gone solo. The work life of a freelance professional (consultant, photographer, designer, developer – you name it) can be remarkably isolated. Beware, the grass is always greener, especially when you’re stuck in corporate-land and dreaming of a life outside of the 60 hour commute-toil-commute nightmare. Solo work can seem like the solution you’ve always longed for, but never found. The elusive silver bullet.

That’s what makes the reality of solo work so much more of a shock once you do take the plunge.

The truth of it is that solo work – startups, freelancing, passion projects – can be a lonely endeavour. There’s a reason why two-founder startups are more likely to succeed compared to solo-founder projects. It can be remarkably isolating to leave the corporate team and go it alone. Gone are the basic infrastructural luxuries of an office, the camaraderie of the team, the water-cooler politics, the pleasures of explaining why you’d do things differently if you had the power. Life as a solopreneur (yes, it’s an awkward term, I’ll admit) can unlock a whole range of beneficial life habits, opportunities and experiences – but it does come at a cost. The solo life is, in a word, lonely.

There are other pressures you’ll face, but let’s focus on this one issue for now – isolation. It’s the single biggest emotional challenge I’ve faced, working on my own. Being so disconnected from people on a daily basis can become a burden. Instead of spending 40+ hours a week with a team of peers, you’re suddenly your own best and worst company. You may find yourself second guessing thoughts and ideas. You may find yourself obsessing over unimportant details. You may even find yourself procrastinating on small jobs or chores that you don’t want to do. The solo life isn’t always laptops on beaches, it can get ugly.

It doesn’t have to be. Here are my top 3 tips for avoiding solopreneur cabin fever:

Find a co-working space. Most cities in Australia have co-working spaces that are located near public transport hubs, come well furnished and are very affordable. This is the most efficient and effective way to avoid loneliness, as it brings you into contact with other people like you, helps you to find your solopreneur soul mates, gives you access to a support network & may even provide you the missing link in your entrepreneurial journey (be that users, co-founders, money, inspiration or – simply put – good advice). Being part of a community goes a very long way to maintaining your sanity. You don’t even need to become a full time member of co-working communities (especially useful if you live far away or can’t bear commuting anymore) you can join them and enjoy the benefits of these communities online. You’ll be invited to meetups, to events, receive resources and more. It’s such an investment, I could even stop here and my job would be nearly done.

Join an interest group. Meetup groups are increasingly common, cover a wide array of interest areas and often don’t come at any cost to join. You could join an interest group for personal reasons, getting connected to a wider community of people who share similar goals. Alternatively you can join an interest group for professional reasons, finding new client or networking opportunities. I’ve also found interest groups are an excellent way to find incredibly talented people, all of whom I’d love to work with.

Which brings us to our third tip: find people to collaborate. Common goals and passions can unearth collaboration opportunities & these are very valuable for undoing the harm of isolation. A common goal is very effective at bringing people of different backgrounds together & the future network benefits of great collaborative projects are endless. Surround yourself with smart people, find worthwhile projects to work on & you’ll soon realise you’ve kicked that isolation to the curb.

One more tip for good measure: there are literally hundreds of resources for entrepreneur lifestyle success. Podcasts, blog posts, books and more. Don’t stop at this blog post, dig deeper. Find the voices you aspire to emulate, the people who’ve tackled the same challenges you face, or simply find someone whose message resonates with you – and hit subscribe. It’ll make a big difference.

Loneliness was the last thing I anticipated, when I went solo nearly two years ago. It hit hard. It took me a while to understand what I was going through & to find the right balance for myself. I found a co-working space (hat-tip to Fishburners in Sydney), joined a community of entrepreneurs, met some incredibly talented people & found projects to collaborate on. You will build momentum, so the sooner you take the first step, the better.

The effect is profound. Traditional film suddenly feels very small and almost claustrophobic. Those black bars at the top and bottom of the screen become horizontal railings that while perhaps not trapping us in, are clearly guiding us along. When the screen opens up to IMAX format though, you’re set free. I kept moving my head up and down trying to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. MG Siegler, over at Medium

I couldn’t agree more. The IMAX experience is literally jaw dropping. I found myself looking around on the screen, trying to soak in every last pixel. Don’t miss this one.

Bullet Journal claims it is for those who feel there are few platforms as powerful as the blank paper page. But just how powerful could a piece of paper be?

Last month I decided to deep dive into the BJS & I’m here to tell you that it is every bit as powerful, flexible and useful as it claims to be.

Firstly, what is a Bullet Journal?

Bullet Journal is simple logging system that uses a few clever tricks to help get & keep you organised. At first blush it seems like a cute yet superficial solution to the problem of disorganisation – one that rests on the analogue pleasures of pen & paper, but that would fall short compared to the digital tools we have in spades. Last month I decided to take the Bullet Journal for a spin, to see if it was up to the task of whipping chaos into order. One month later, here are my thoughts on the usefulness & potential of the Bullet Journal system & whether or not you should consider using it.

Want more time-saving Bullet Journal tips?

It’s designed to be easy to remember & importantly, very quick to use. It’s best used with gridded or dotted notepads, but you could also make it work without these things. It’s built around a few simple ideas:

A small collection of meaingful markers, the box, the bullet point and the circle. Each of these signify a different item: a to-do task, a note and an event,

That’s it. The Bullet Journal really is that simple. The simplicity of the system is what appealed to me at first, both as a way to organise & order the clutter of hand written notes & as a way to bridge between the physical & digital worlds (more on that later). All you need is a stack of paper & this simple system to tackle your work.

Why would you need such a system?

The Bullet Journal system, like nearly all note organisation systems, won’t be for everybody. You might be perfectly happy to have the messy desk, creative mind organisation system, perhaps your notes aren’t particularly important, or you have a well developed spatial memory (one clear advantage of hand written notes) Perhaps the loss of one specific note wouldn’t be significant to you.

I’ve certainly churned through many notebooks in the last half decade, the contents of which probably wouldn’t be very interesting — even to me.

So why pick a system like Bullet Journal? This is for people who do keep precious notes, notes for which date & context is important, for people who want to be able to keep a better record of the events that happen in their lives. People who want to be able to note anything, at any time, without later needing to translate that into some other system or place.

People who want an everything bucket, but who don’t want their notes to devolve into meaningless mush.

A not-uncommon example from my most recent journal.

How do I use it?

I’ve made an effort to apply the tenets of the system as closely as I can remember, in the moment. Like with any system, if it’s hard to remember in practice, it’s not going to stick. I’ve found that the most useful aspects of the Bullet Journal system have stuck, becoming the default way I organise my thoughts. Here’s how I use it:

Every day gets a full two-page spread, with tasks listed below the date

I rarely use the note or event items, instead I stick to tasks

Tasks not completed one day are moved to the next day (with a > symbol to indicate that it’s moved)

Completed tasks are ticked (not struck-through)

Collections of thoughts are grouped, on a new page where necessary & added to the index.

I’ve added colour coding to tasks to make it easier to skim & pick something to work on (this was inspired by the fantastic digital highlighting on the Bullet Journal website). I use three colours: Work, Hobbies & Personal. I’ve found this to be very helpful.

A typical entry in my Bullet Journal

How does it work in practice?

One pleasant and unexpected benefit is that — since I’m using small Field Notes notebooks — space is limited for daily tasks. Why is this a benefit? It places a physical limit on the number of tasks I can add to any one day. It’s like a sensible cap on the tasks you should attempt to do in one day. Yes, some days are busier & we’re pressured to get more done. But most days aren’t like that. The Bullet Journal helps support the tasks we need to get done, whilst also placing natural limits on the to-do list.

Bullet Journaling also makes micro-management difficult & this is another good thing. There’s no point listing out every step involved in a bigger task, you’ll simply run out of space. The system encourages you to think in a concise, outcome-oriented way, though this will require some acclimatisation.

One of the ways I’ve struggled to implement this system is in choosing the appropriate scope for a task. I’ll give you an example: My fiancee and I are currently planning our wedding. One task that insists on following me through my notebook, zombie style, is an item called ‘Plan Ceremony’. This is a classic example of using an inappropriate scope. There’s no point adding huge tasks that aren’t really tasks at all – they’re actually projects.

In this case, I’m much better off creating a Ceremony collection page where I can add & complete subtasks of this bigger project. Then the daily ‘Ceremony’ task could be used to call out the actions or items that actually need attention, today. It’s good to avoid these situations that can quickly notch up a lot of emotional debt – your tasks keep following you through your notebook with no end in sight. This is madness & a simple collection page is the Bullet Journal solution.

Would you recommend the Bullet Journal system?

Absolutely. This system is for anyone looking to structure their work, thoughts or notes quickly. It’s stable yet flexible, I’ve found that it’s certainly able to grow and adapt to the way I need it to work.

What are the pros & cons?

Pros

A quick & simple task logging system

A smart way to organise otherwise jumpled thoughts

An index to your paper life, easily searchable by date or topic

All you need is pen & paper

Cons

It does require more thought than simply living in chaos (or whatever your current system might be)

You will need to pick a notebook with numbered pages, or commit to doing that yourself.

Other Notes

Because I use Field Notes notebooks, I find that each notebook takes up about a month’s worth of the Bullet Journal. If you include the index & calendar pages, daily spreads and collections, a month of content will almost fill up a single notebook. I like this as it lends itself to easy archiving of notebooks as well as clearly delineating one month from another. If you add in the differently coloured Field Notes editions, each month stands out even more.

A sharpie or differently coloured notebook can help you quickly spot the different journals / months.

Colour coding tasks is a really great way to help focus on what needs to be done, right now. You can look at today’s tasks and decide where to focus your attention, quickly

It does require a commitment to organisation from the user. For instance, if your notebook doesn’t have numbered pages, you’ll quickly tire of the process involved in numbering your pages. I don’t mind doing this, actually, but I can imagine I might feel differently in 6 months time.

Having one notebook for each month might feel like overkill if you’re accustomed to fitting 5-6 months into a single moleskin notebook. Field Notes notebooks are quite compact, but I can imagine it might get annoying trying to keep it all organised.

[Update: Rachel Baird says she also uses the Bullet Journal to log her spending habits, as she makes purchases. I’ll have to give this a try & see if it sticks.]

Closing Thoughts

The Bullet Journal is a very effective system & took very little effort to commit to memory. It’s quite easy to pick up and use, whilst also being flexible enough to accommodate small tweaks you might add for your own situation. Like any effective system, the big questions is: does it help you to accomplish more?

In my experience, the answer is a resounding yes. I’d recommend it to anyone looking to find order in the madness of their handwritten notes.

All the millions, billions, trillions and (single) quadrillion from his 1980’s tv series Cosmos.

Here he is again, being profound;

Carl Sagan is just the best. Listen to him calmly defuse a radio caller keen on fighting! with words!

And finally, here’s an hour of Carl Sagan saying the word “billion”. Yep, that’s right. An hour of Carl saying one big word. Not looped, not a supercut, a slow motion Carl Sagan. Buckle up, it’s going to get weird.

One of my crew’s challenges, then, was to find ways to evoke mood with backgrounds. When a character is in a crowded situation he is not comfortable with, listen for background laughter. When McNulty is drunk and on the prowl, listen for dogs barking (because he’s a dog – my own private commentary on his character). There was a whole world of work that went in to creating the sound of Hamsterdam and building it from an empty to thriving enterprise.

This one is definitely NSFW. I love these behind the scenes, oral histories of shows like The Wire. I love them because they lift the curtain on something truly great but that’s not the only reason. I love them because they imply, by shining light on the technical, personal or cultural challenges that had to be overcome, that greatness can be reached by anyone. I find that super inspiring.

Powerful technologies of public imagination are hitting the street. They are fast infiltrating society’s main stream. And as they go, we find ourselves living out a dictum something like McLuhan meeting Polak: “We shape our images of the future, and meanwhile, they shape us.”

Stuart Candy (aka the skeptical futuryst) left for snowier shores around two years ago. Australia just hasn’t been the same since.